


A Companion of Wit and Interest

by Evilawyer



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-14
Updated: 2009-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilawyer/pseuds/Evilawyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He kept the stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Companion of Wit and Interest

**Author's Note:**

> Time Frame: During _Journey's End_ , the Doctor considers events set during _The Aztecs_.
> 
> Betaed by shinodabear.

The Doctor, the proper Doctor, leaned against the console room strut and watched as his friends, the people he loved, worked the TARDIS controls. He watched them as they laughed and hugged each other and congratulated themselves on a job well done. He watched them be together while he stood apart and played with the flat, black stone he'd retrieved from his jacket pocket, turning it over in his left hand like a coin.

He didn't realize Donna had come to stand by his side until she nudged his upper arm with her shoulder. He turned his head to see her looking at him, a bottle of raspberry-flavored vodka in one hand, two shot glasses in the other and a questioning half-smile on her face. She held the glasses pinched together, her thumb and forefinger touching the insides of the glasses. It was the way he had always heard that people with no class, people who were common, carried glasses.

Donna set the glasses down on the railing. “Fancy a drink to celebrate?"

He breathed in deep and nodded. “Yeah.”

He watched as Donna poured out the shots. She set the bottle on the railing and picked up a glass in each hand. Handing one to the Doctor, she held her own glass up in a toast. “Prosit. Na Zdrowie. A votre sante. Alla sal`te. Sal_d. Kanpai. Oh, I just love knowing all these different languages! I mean, look at me! Hundred words a minute doesn't mean I ever had much in the way of language skills. Oh, I love this!”

“Cheers,” the Doctor replied and clinked his glass to hers.

They each drank one shot, then another. He set his glass down on the railing and turned back to watch the neophyte TARDIS pilots. His gaze came to rest on Martha. She stood talking animatedly with Jack and Sarah Jane. Rose joined the trio, leaving the Doctor's human clone at the console, where he seemed to be trying to explain the controls to Jackie. Martha smiled at Rose and immediately included her in whatever inane, human conversation they'd all been having.

Donna silently watched the Doctor watch them. He didn't, Donna noticed as she poured herself a third shot, divert his gaze from Martha to Rose.

“So,” Donna said once she'd downed her drink. She slammed her empty shot glass down on the railing; the force of it made the Doctor's glass and the vodka bottle wobble. The Doctor jumped and looked around at the sound. “Exactly how is it,” Donna, now sure she had his attention, began, “that things got 'complicated' 'tween you and Martha?”

“I think you've had enough.” The Doctor reached out to take the shot glass out of Donna's hand. He got as far as brushing it with his fingertips before Donna pulled it away.

“Think all you like,” Donna retorted as she picked up the bottle and poured herself a fourth shot. “I think I'll have another drink while you do. Come on, this is a celebration.”

“Now I know you've had enough.” The Doctor again tried to take Donna's glass from her hand. He was no more successful on his second try than he'd been on his first.

Donna downed her drink. “How do you know when I've had enough? You don't know what I do down at the pub with my friends on a Friday night.”

“I know you.” He reached for the bottle neck.

“I guess you don't know me so well,” Donna said as she pushed the bottle down the railing and away from the Doctor's hand. She wasn't prepared for the stricken look on his face when she looked back at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor answered as hunched his shoulders, crossed his arms across his chest and stared at the console across the room. His sorrowful stare said otherwise.

“No. Come on. What is it?” She turned to face the console, reached over and laid her hand between his shoulder blades. “And don't tell me it's nothing because I can see that it's something. Even without my huge Time Lord intellect.”

“It's nothing. It's just...Someone else said that to me. Not all that long ago.” The Doctor made a choked laugh sound. To Donna's ears, it could have just as easily been a stifled sob. “And he was right.”

Too soon for that one, Donna thought. Another time. I'm going to travel with this man forever. They'll be plenty of time for it. She pressed on. “Yeah, but right now I wanna know about Martha.”

The Doctor straightened from his slouch. He kept his arms crossed across his chest. “She's brilliant. She saved the world.”

“Yeah, but that's not what made things complicated. I mean, that's what you do all the time, isn't it?”

“Me, yeah. But she did it alone.”

“Where were you, then?”

“Waiting for her to finish the job I sent her out to do. And she did it. She did.”

“Okay, yeah, but how did that make things complicated?”

“It didn't. She...It was me.”

“Ugh. Blokes like you are always thinkin' like that. 'She couldn't resist me. I mean, look at me. How could she have?' So full of yourselves.”

“It was me,” the Doctor protested. “Not like you mean, but...She fancied me and I...I let her. I kept on letting her until it almost destroyed her and her family.”

“But they're all all right, aren't they?” Donna couldn't stop the disapproving worry from creeping into her voice. “You didn't let them die, did you?”

“They're all right now. They didn't die. But they could have. Everyone could have.” The Doctor paused; Donna did not prompt him. “I wanted someone around. I didn't want to be on my own. Not after Rose. There was another girl, a lot like Rose, but she died and you.... But Martha was...there. Willing."

“So...” Donna took a moment to determine how to best phrase what she had to say. “You encouraged her? You led Martha on? Is that what you're saying?”

“Not led her on, exactly. I just didn't tell her that there wasn't any chance. That there was nothing there and there never would be.”

“She's a smart girl. She'd have figured that out.”

“Oh, she did. And when she did, she left me. There I was, after everything that had gone on, after everything she'd had to face out there alone, acting like nothing had happened, asking her where she wanted to go next. But she reminded me.”

“Of what?”

“That she had people she cared for and who cared for her. People she needed to be there for. People she wanted to be there for because they were there for her. Like I wasn't ever going to be.”

“What are you on about? She cares for you. She's your friend. And you came running when she called about the Sontarans.”

The Doctor laughed bitterly. “Oh, yeah. I come running when there's death and danger to be had. That's me.”

“Sounds like a good thing, if you ask me.” Donna leaned back against the railing, hands to either side of her. “You come in, you save the day...”

“And then I leave. I don't stay.”

Donna turned her head to look at the Doctor. She was just about to tell him to explain himself when Rose approached, saying, “It's going to be a while before we land. I'm just going off to make some tea for everyone. Want some, Doctor?”

“No,” the Doctor answered without looking Rose in the eye. “Donna?”

“No, thanks.”

“Yeah. I'm not sure I want tea myself,” Rose said. “Think I'd go in more for a cup of cocoa. How about you, Doctor? Cocoa?”

“I don't drink cocoa,” he answered. Donna noticed that his tone was more brusque than was strictly appropriate for a discussion about hot drinks.

Rose, however, didn't notice. “All right, then. See you in a few minutes.” She left the room.

Donna nodded her head in the direction of Rose's retreating form. “You'll stay with Rose,” she said, trying to sound like she was voicing a certainty.

The Doctor's looked at the floor. He said nothing.

Donna continued to look at the door that had closed behind Rose. “You won't leave Rose,” she tried again, but her growing doubt made the statement sound more like a question.

“I'm a traveler,” the Doctor said flatly. “I don't stay. Not anywhere.”

Since the Doctor wouldn't answer her in words, Donna turned her head to look for the answer in his eyes. Words could evade and words could lie --- not that the Doctor ever would --- but a person's eyes never could. She found, to her surprise, that she was thwarted in her effort by the fact that she couldn't distinguish his irises from his pupils, not while looking at his eyes straight on. She had never noticed how very alien his eyes could look. Not until that moment. She felt a shiver run through her.

“You may not settle down with her, no, but you'll stay with her. You'll keep her with you,” Donna said, trying to tamp down her rising sense of unease. “You love her. She's the one companion you've loved...”

The Doctor uncrossed his arms and reared up suddenly to his full height. He rounded on Donna. “I've loved all my companions,” he growled. “All of them. You, too. Never, ever think I don't.”

“Yeah, okay. All right,” Donna placated as she realized she'd hit a nerve. She didn't know how deep it was and wasn't sure she could keep from hitting it again. But after everything he'd said about Rose, after everything he'd seemed to want for and about her, avoiding the subject seemed somehow wrong. “But Rose is different, yeah? She's the one you've seen yourself building a future with, making a life....”

“Having a garden,” the Doctor said suddenly, then looked down to stare at the black stone in his left hand.

Donna followed his gaze to his left palm. “What's that?”

He shifted the stone to his right hand and silently held it out for Donna's inspection.

Donna held her hand out for the stone. After a moment's hesitation, the Doctor gave it to her. “Pretty,” she said as she turned the stone in her fingers. “Some kind of carving. Mayan. No, Aztec, by the look of it. Where'd you get it?”

“Mexico,” the Doctor said tonelessly. “In a garden.”

“Went rock hunting, did you?”

The Doctor shook his head. “It was given to me. By a very intelligent and gentle woman.” He sounded more bleak than Donna would have expected over a simple story about how he came by a rock.

“Ooh, a gift from a girl,” Donna gently teased, hoping to erase the grimness from the Doctor's features and manner. “So someone besides Martha has fancied you, then?”

He smiled slightly. “She gave it to me as a token of her love.”

There suddenly seemed no room for levity in the conversation. “How did you meet her,” Donna asked, serious now.

“I was stranded in the Aztec Empire in the 1400s. The TARDIS was stuck in a high priest's tomb. It took awhile to get back to it. I met Cameca.” He fell silent.

“Cameca,” Donna gently repeated after an long interval. “That's a nice name.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed. “Very nice.” He looked at Donna as though deciding whether to tell her more, then looked away and continued speaking. “She wasn't a girl, either. Not that she was old, not exactly. Probably in her fifties, that's all. Early sixties at the most. But she was one of her society's elders, and she spent her time in this garden that they'd built for all the older people so they could spend their last years in peace.” The Doctor sniffed. “Seemed kind of boring to me, but it was kind of a brain trust, all their accumulated knowledge and skills in one place. Everyone came to Cameca for advice.” A hint of pride crept into his tone. “Autloc, the high priest of knowledge, he told me that her advice was asked for more than anyone else's. I know I certainly took advantage of her wisdom and diplomacy skills. Full advantage.” The Doctor closed his eyes, as if looking though time for a glimpse of the woman he once knew. “Wise. She was wise. And, I don't know, involved, is the word, I guess. Her mind was young. It was always engaged. But she wasn't hard or conniving. She was kind. And she was generous.” He opened his eyes. “She was wonderful.”

Donna nodded and remained silent.

“I asked her to marry me.” He gave a little snort of laughter. “I didn't know I had. Ian --- Ian was traveling with me then, along with Barbara and my granddaughter --- I told him I made some cocoa and got engaged. And that was the truth of it. Cocoa was a love potion or an aphrodisiac or something for the Aztecs, and I hadn't known that. I made cocoa for Cameca and me, and she told me I'd --- what was the word she used? 'Declared' I think it was. She told me I'd declared my love for her by making it for us. Then she told me she accepted my proposal of marriage.

Serious as the discussion was, Donna couldn't help but laugh. “Hah! I'll bet that took you by surprise.”

“Oh, yes.” The Doctor nodded exaggeratedly and widened his eyes in agreement. “And I didn't know how to begin to tell her I hadn't meant it as a marriage proposal, so...I didn't. And after a bit, after the shock wore off, I was all right with it.” He stared off into the far distance that only he could see. “She wanted us to have a garden of our own.” He smiled abstractedly. “I would have liked that. Having a garden with her.”

“Did you?”

The Doctor looked at Donna. “Did I what?”

“Ever have a garden with her.”

The Doctor looked away. “She wasn't just intelligent and kind. She was brave. She was so very brave. She risked her life to save Susan, my granddaughter Susan, from this horrible thing they were going to do to her as punishment for breaking Aztec law. She knew I was leaving and she did that anyway. And then she told me she'd hoped she could stay with me, and I...” He hesitated as he worked his jaw. “She told me to think of her.” He stared at the stone nestled in Donna's palm. “I can't say that I have. Not really. Can't even say I've remembered her. Not until just now.” The trace of regret in his voice was so faint that Donna thought she might have imagined it. She knew she hadn't.

Donna could reason better than any other human in the universe thanks to her Time Lord intellect, but she realized with a flash of insight that was wholly and solely human that not only had Cameca loved the Doctor but that, in his way, his alien way, the Doctor had loved Cameca back. A human man who had felt that love might have been tempted to stay. But the Doctor wasn't human, and it was plain to Donna from the way he spoke and looked at the stone in her hand that that love hadn't been enough to make him stay.

“I don't stay. I never stay,” the Doctor said, eyes still fixed on the stone.

Donna stroked the stone's carved surface. “Yeah, but you know what?” She lifted the Doctor's hand with her free hand and placed the stone gently in the middle of his palm. “You did do as she asked. This stone she gave you, it's a symbol of her love for you. Just like a wedding ring. And you kept it.” She curled his fingers closed over the stone. “And keeping something like that, well, I'm pretty sure that's how you think of someone.”

The Doctor looked at his loosely closed fist. He smiled, small and wry, and put the stone back in his pocket. “We'd best be getting this lot back home then,” he said, nodding in the general direction of all of his friends.

“Yeah. That would be be be be be...” Donna forced herself to stop talking. “Whew! Never stuttered before,” she said as the Doctor looked at her worriedly. “Must be all the excitement. Either that or my brain's too big now to take care of a mundane little thing like talkin'." Noting that the Doctor was still concerned, she said, “It's nothing. Really. Come on, then. Let's get everyone home.”


End file.
